Monster: Poems

The debut poetry collection from one of feminism’s most passionate voices, with a new preface by the author

Well before Robin Morgan was known as a feminist leader, literary magazines published her as a serious poet, and in 1979 she received a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in poetry. Monster, her first collection, originally published in 1972, contains work that will astonish, disorient, and move readers in powerful ways.

But Monster is more than just a book; it has become a phenomenon. Written at a time of political turmoil during the birth of contemporary feminism, the title poem was adopted by women as the anthem of the women’s movement; it was chanted at demonstrations and some of its lines became slogans. “Arraignment” stirred an international controversy over Ted Hughes’s influence on Sylvia Plath’s suicide—complete with lawsuits, the banning of this book, and the publication of underground, pirated feminist editions, all of which Morgan reveals in her new preface.

From her well-wrought poems in classical forms to the searing energy and poignant lyricism of the longer, later ones, Morgan’s work when it was first released spoke to women hungry for validation of their own reality—and the book sold thirty thousand copies in hardcover alone in its first six months, which was unheard of for poetry.     

Available now for the first time in years, Monster is an intense, propulsive journey deep into the heart of one of feminism’s greatest heroes.